Telephone calls are traditionally handled via a user holding a phone handset up to his or her ear and mouth. However, often convenience and other factors are such that a user of a phone, especially a wireless mobile phone, would rather conduct a telephone call without holding the phone to his or her ear, i.e., to conduct the call “hands free.” One significant reason to conduct telephone calls hands free is so that they may be conducted while the user's hands are concentrating on another important task such as operating a motor vehicle. Injuries and even deaths caused by persons operating a vehicle while speaking on a telephone are on the rise worldwide, and hands-free operation of the telephone equipment makes driving, and speaking while driving, much safer. Furthermore, concerns about radiation make it safer, healthier and more desirable not to have the phone next to the user's head for extended periods of time.
The growth of smartphones, both figuratively (their increased prevalence) and literally (their increased size), has made the idea of hands free calling much more important than it had previously been. Users often wish to have the screens of their smartphones available during a phone call to conduct other tasks on their smartphones, which are increasingly able to conduct many tasks such as messaging, content consumption or creation, and web browsing, all during an active phone call. Holding the phone to one's head during a call makes the phone unusable for any other task during the call. Furthermore, the rise of the “phablet,” the phone/tablet hybrid with increased device and screen sizes in some cases greater than five inches diagonally, makes holding a phone to the user's ear less comfortable than previously, making a hands free solution more attractive. Furthermore, so called “phone” conversations, as well as video calls, are now increasingly conducted on devices that are not phones at all, such as computers or tablets, and via such technologies as Skype, Apple FaceTime, or Google Hangouts which make a hands free headset an even more crucial part of the “telephone” call. Phone conversations may also be conducted via a smart watch such as those manufactured by Apple or Samsung, which make it important and desirable to be able to conduct calls hands-free.
Speakerphones are one known hands free technology. However, speakerphones expose both sides of the conversation to others who are in listening range, and suffer from poor audio quality, especially on mobile devices whose loudspeakers and longer-distance microphones are lacking in fidelity because of size concerns.
Headsets are known in the art of wireless telephone accessories. Wired headsets plug into an interface in an audio device, e.g. a ⅛ inch headphone jack. Audio from the device travels over a wire to audio ear pieces (e.g. one or two earbuds) that are placed in the user's ear(s). In the telephone-specific version of the wired headset, a microphone is present, and audio from the user's voice enters via the microphone, then travels via the wire to the phone, so that the user can listen to, and be heard on, telephone calls, without holding the wireless phone up to his or her ear and mouth.
Wired headsets are inconvenient because they require a wire connecting the cellular phone and the microphone/earbuds, which requires the phone to be in extremely close proximity to the user, generally on his or her person, e.g. in a pocket or the user's hand. Also, the wires are easily tangled, especially when the headset is stored while not in use. Wires are also easily caught on objects in the user's environment which can cause the earbuds to become dislodged and/or can result in damage to the headset or to the wireless phone to which it is connected. Also, when the wired headset is connected, sound is sent to the earbuds rather than the internal speaker. Accordingly, if the earbuds are not in the user's ear, the user may not hear an important alert from the wireless phone. Accordingly, a user who does not wish to keep earbuds in his ears all the time may unplug a wired headset from the phone in order to hear the alerts at times when earbuds are not in his or her ears, in which case plugging the wired headset back in, in the case of an incoming phone call, becomes a cumbersome process that in most cases cannot be completed before the call stops ringing in favor of the voicemail system or the caller hangs up. Thus, the user must then bring the telephone to his ear to answer the call, perhaps adding the wired headset into the mix afterwards, while the call is ongoing. Furthermore, some communications devices, such as smart wrist watches, do not have a headphone plug to accept a wired headset, and such headsets are therefore limited by the headset devices with which they can be used.
Wireless headsets are also known in the art. A wireless headset allows a user to hear audio emanating from a source device without a wire connecting the headset to the source device. The most popular wireless headsets today use the Bluetooth™ protocol for short distance networking, for transmitting the audio from the phone to the headset and vice versa. While wireless headsets improve upon wired headsets in some ways, they retain some of the problems and they present their own problems. Much like a wired headset, a wireless headset must remain in the user's ear if the user wishes to hear alerts while the wireless headset is activated or if the user wants the Bluetooth headset immediately accessible when a call is received. Because users do not wish to keep such devices in their ears all the time, they store the devices and may also deactivate them. This presents a problem because the device must be kept in a bag or a pocket, which opens up the possibility that the device will break, and also that the device is not easily and immediately accessible when a call is received. Clip-on devices that can be clipped to the placket of buttoned dress shirts are known in the art, but they are two part devices, one part clipping to the shirt, containing the Bluetooth communication hardware, and a second part containing a wired earbud. The two parts are connected with a wire long enough to reach from a chest (where it is usually clipped on a shirt) to an ear. While this does not require a wire all the way to the wireless phone, it still presents most of the problems discussed above with respect to wired headsets relating to the wire being in the way, becoming tangled, or caught, resulting in the earbud becoming dislodged from the ear or the device becoming damaged.
A wireless headset as known in the art also would have to be activated (e.g., powered on and paired with the phone) when a call comes in and, like plugging in a wired headset, activating a wireless headset and connecting to the mobile phone is a task that is unlikely to be completed in time to answer the call. Furthermore, activating the device and answering the call are separate steps in the process because they require separate user actions (e.g., the activating of multiple buttons or switches), and the call cannot be answered via the “answer call” button on the headset until the headset is powered on and paired with the phone. Accordingly, it is nearly impossible to get a traditional Bluetooth headset from an off state to being on, paired, and in position, in time to then answer an incoming call. Accordingly, if the user wishes to have the wireless headset activated for incoming phone calls, the user must keep the device powered on all day. This is a substantial drain on battery life not only of the wireless headset, but of the phone or other audio device with which it is paired as well. Also, as noted, even if the user wished to keep the device powered on all day, the user would have to either keep the device in his/her ear, or miss alerts and other audio from his/her phone.
Accordingly, a wireless headset which can be clipped to a dress shirt placket, without a wire between the main portion of the device and the earbud, which can be powered on, paired with a device, and answer a call, all using the same streamlined interface, e.g. a single switch, such that all three can be accomplished during the average time a telephone call rings, would be advantageous.